


2018 short fic

by ferryboatpeak



Category: Dunkirk (2017) RPF, Harry Styles (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, House Party, Lacrosse, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, New Year's Kiss, hometown feelings, tom's plaid trousers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:02:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13240992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferryboatpeak/pseuds/ferryboatpeak
Summary: collected short works from tumblr and dreamwidth. pairing to be ID'd in each chapter title.





	1. just so unexpected (tomrry)

**Author's Note:**

> kicking this off on new year's day even though with only one work there's no way to chapter this yet. just a lil tomrry midnight kiss fluff, enjoy.

Tom’s parents think he’s spending the night at Barry’s, which is exactly the impression he intended to convey when he told them -- truthfully -- that he’s "spending New Year's Eve with Barry." Barry’s grandma doesn’t care when Barry tells her they’re going to a party with Jack. Tom’s not even sure she remembers that Jack graduated last year, and that Tom and Barry are therefore headed an hour and a half down the interstate to his college town.

They spend the early part of the night at Jack’s apartment, mixing whiskey with his stash of Diet Coke. Jack’s roommate Aneurin seems pretty cool. After 11pm they walk to the party, a few blocks away. Tom shivers in his hoodie; none of his coats had seemed like the right thing to wear to a college party.

They can hear the music halfway down the block. It’s coming from a ramshackle rental house with a plaid couch on the porch and a clutch of smokers tossing butts into an empty paint can. A lanky guy in a leather jacket leans against the side of the front door, lit by the dim yellow bulb of the porch light. He’s holding a coffee can with a slit cut into the lid.

“Five dollar cover,” he tells them, after they thump their way up the wooden stairs.

“Seriously?”

The guy looks down his nose at Barry. “The band’s worth it.”

Barry nudges Tom. “I left my wallet at Jack’s, can you spot me?”

The noise coming from the house swells with a moment of commotion. “Nick!” someone hollers. “We’ve got a problem.”

The doorman -- Nick, apparently -- shoves the coffee can into Jack’s hands. “Man the gate for five minutes and I’ll let you in free.” He disappears into the house, elbowing people out of the way.

Tom drapes his hoodie over the porch railing while they wait. It’s going to be hot inside, plus his black t-shirt is neutral enough to blend in, to let him be whoever he wants to. He’s already feeling self-conscious about his plaid trousers, cuffed above his Doc Martens. He tells himself that it’s crowded enough inside that probably no one will even notice them.

Nick returns a few minutes later and reclaims the coffee can. “Keg’s in the kitchen,” he tells them, waving them through the door into a packed room. Tom realizes that there’s no furniture in the house, and yet it’s still barely possible to make their way through the crush of people.

In the kitchen Tom can feel the drums coming up through the soles of his feet, aligning with his heartbeat. While Barry and Jack wait in line at the keg, he drifts over to the open door that leads to the basement. The music gets louder, more insistent, and Tom ducks down the stairs.

The basement’s one big low-ceilinged space, with the band at the far end. They’re elevated somehow, just enough that the bass player’s almost hitting his head every time he bounces on his toes. From his vantage point on the stairs, Tom can see that the lead singer’s on his knees, fists clenched, begging the crowd for something that the crowd’s doing its best to give him. His body’s a lean line from his thighs to his throat, his head thrown back and his mouth open in a howl. Tom stares until someone jostles him the rest of the way down the stairway and into the mass of jumping, thrashing bodies.

The crowd’s in such constant motion that it’s not hard to squirm his way through the crush of bodies toward the makeshift stage. He stops before he’s all the way to the front, needing a buffer. The lead singer’s obviously there to be stared at, prancing and kicking and demanding everyone’s attention, but Tom still feels like his own gaze is too obvious.

He tries to watch the drummer instead. She has a weird hat and is unquestionably the coolest girl Tom has ever seen. It’s no use trying to distract himself, though; the singer stumbles over his microphone cord and Tom instinctively throws up his hands, like he’s in any position to catch him. The singer catches his eye, and smirks, and sings “It’s none of your business” straight at him, and Tom’s face burns.

That song seems to be the peak of the set. The band finishes with a crashing chord, and the singer rakes his hand back through his hair. “I’m Harry, and I’m from England,” he announces. “It’s almost midnight.” He leans down to grab a water bottle, drinking deeply before he starts the countdown. Tom should go back upstairs, Barry and Jack are probably wondering where he is, but he feels part of an organism here, one atom vibrating with the rest of the particles. At midnight the singer slashes his water bottle in an arc over the crowd, spraying water everywhere and sending the bottle flying. “Happy New Year!” He poses with his arms thrown upward, a tattooed hip peeking out from under the hem of his shirt.

Tom wipes droplets of water off his forehead. Someone tosses a handful of confetti into the air, and it drifts down over everyone around him kissing and cheering. He stands transfixed as Harry struts over to his long-haired guitarist and kisses him full on the mouth. For a split second it’s the hottest thing Tom has ever seen, and then the guitarist good-naturedly shoves Harry away.

Harry, unfazed, looks over the crowd again. His gaze meets Tom’s. Tom jerks his head away, embarrassed to be caught watching, and studies the drummer again. She’s kissing the guitarist now.  
In his peripheral vision, he sees Harry stepping off the layers of pallets and plywood that form the makeshift stage. He’s definitely not coming toward Tom, he’s not, he’s not, and Tom is not going to look at him because that will make it totally embarrassing when Harry passes him by. But suddenly he’s close enough that Tom has to look, look at the sweaty lock of hair falling over his forehead and the mole to the side of his lips and the profusion of tattoos on his arm and how his hand’s heavy with rings when he brings it up to cup the side of Tom’s face.

His thumb presses gently against Tom’s cheek and his knuckle brushes Tom’s earring. Tom already can’t breathe, even before Harry’s wide mouth is on his in a lazy, searching kiss.

Harry’s tongue flicks against his lips. Tom opens his mouth, or maybe his jaw drops. He’s not going to live to see the new year, he’s going to die in this basement, burnt up by Harry’s kiss, a soft pile of ashes mingling with the confetti on the floor.

Harry breaks the kiss and smiles at him crookedly. “Happy New Year.”

Tom resists the urge to press his hand over his mouth, like the memory is something that’ll evaporate if he doesn’t trap it there. “Starts like that, reckon it’s going to be a good one.”

“Begin as you wish to continue,” Harry says, and kisses him again.


	2. trick things (xarry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a little lowercase musing about xarry on a lacrosse field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops, guess i didn't write much short fic this year. and this one barely qualifies, even cleaned up from its tumblr form, but i wanted to preserve it here all the same. sorry about the messy pov shift!

harry stays in pennsylvania with xander, just for a night in the middle of tour. It feels like he’s escaped. like he’s almost normal. just going home to an actual house with a regular family. they sit on the patio at the edge of the vast green well-tended back lawn, looking out toward the goal that's set up at the far end, and xander’s dad pours him a vodka soda, and nobody cares that he’s got millions in ticket sales on his shoulders that he’s got to make good on for the rest of the summer. 

xander drives him harry down six-lane roads with timed stoplights marking off blocks and blocks of strip malls with upscale chains, the suburbia where all good lax bros ripen to maturity. he's halfway embarrassed about his hometown — it’s not some village in cheshire, is it; it’s not an  _ origin story _ , just a shitty suburb — but also a weird kind of pride, like, fuck it, this is what he’s got. there’s his dad’s office, there’s the doughnut place everybody went to late at night, there’s the gas station where his buddy puked out the window of xander’s SUV.

they spend the evening drinking here and there, in strip mall restaurants, in the only legitimate dive in town. xander’s not sure whether he’s trying to lose everyone he knows from high school or find them. the phillies game is on every screen, and harry gets weirdly enthusiastic about it, tries to pretend he knows something about baseball. xander doesn’t call him on it. nobody’s recognized harry, or at least nobody’s slipped if they have, and harry’s loving it, getting drunk and loose-limbed and handsy.

about midnight they drive past the high school. the readerboard glows “have a great summer vacation!” harry presses his cheek against the window, streetlights streaking his face. “is that where you played?” 

xander turns quick into the drive, jostling harry in the passenger seat. he floors it to cut crosswise over the grid of parking spaces, just because it makes harry cackle, and brakes hard at the edge of the athletic field behind the school. The empty parking lot stretches out behind them, ghosts of douchebag rich kid cars flickering between the lightposts. 

xander slaps a hand on the roof as he hops out. “wanna play?” he asks, leaning back inside. harry’s smile spreads out slow and crooked, the smile that says he’s up for it. harry’s always up for it.

there’s a couple of sticks in the hatch, in the middle of a mess of tennis balls and softball gear and frisbees. he tosses one to harry as they walk toward the field, away from the streetlights that mark the border of the parking lot.

harry holds it like a baseball bat, whiffing at invisible pitches. “what do i do?”

“dumbass.” xander stops him in the center of the field and drops his own stick. he folds his body around harry’s, holding harry’s left hand in place at the butt end of the stick and sliding his right hand up the shaft. harry’s shoulder blades are sharp against his chest, and his bare forearms are warm under xander’s as xander moves him through the motions of passing, catching, scooping up the ball.

“choke up,” xander says, tugging harry’s hand up toward the pocket. 

harry’s hand slips out from under his. “choke up on your shaft?” he jacks his hand up and down the lacrosse stick, bumping xander’s hand on each upstroke.

xander’s palms itch with energy he doesn’t know how to expend. he wants to grab the ball out of the pocket of his shorts and throw it all the way down the field. he wants to snap his stick in half over his knee. he wants to gouge a line through the thick field turf into the dirt.

“fucking genius.” he smacks harry on the side of his head and goes to pick up his own stick. “like I haven’t heard every stick joke there is.” 

“nice shaft,” harry says, undeterred, holding his lacrosse stick at his crotch and thrusting his hips at xander. 

xander backs up and backs up until harry’s only a smudge of white t-shirt in the faint glow sifting across the field from the parking lot lights. more manageable from this distance. he tosses the ball into the air and fires a long pass down the field at harry, hard, pouring everything into it.

the flash of the white ball, the blur of harry’s t-shirt reaching for it, and then his whoop as the ball lands in the pocket. goddammit, even half-drunk and in the dark he’s still got that crazy hand-eye coordination, catching every pass xander sends his way. his returns are mostly misdirected grounders, but xander’s quick enough to scoop most of them up. muscles stretching, boat shoes skidding on the grass, the familiar weight of the ball settling in the pocket again and again, all of it starting to vent the pulsing energy under his skin.

xander starts making harry work for it, aiming further and further to either side so harry has to run. harry’s laughing, so pleased with himself, the stripes on his vans catching the streetlight as he scrambles for the ball. xander finally gets him by faking one way and passing in the opposite direction, so that harry trips over his own stupid deer legs when he tries to change course. the lacrosse stick goes flying and harry hits the ground, swearing and laughing.

as xander saunters down the field toward him, he rolls over onto his back and flings his arms up and says something about the stars. xander glances up into the murky suburban sky, unimpressed. down on the ground, harry’s looking up at him, eyes dark, in just enough light to see the sweaty curls sticking around the edges of his face.

xander’s been out here at night before, plenty of times, with max or other teammates, fucking around with trick plays and crushing their beer cans into the turf. this feels different.

and he’s used to seeing harry other places, LA cool in his aviators and range rover or leading them past velvet ropes and through back doors in NYC. this feels different.

this is just for him, harry in his worn-out t-shirt and corduroys spread out in the dark on the field that xander knows every inch of. he made a game-winning shot on goal once from almost exactly this spot. this feels better.

xander pokes him in the ribs with the pocket of his stick. harry slaps it away, giggling and curling to the side. when xander holds out a hand to help him up, harry pulls him down instead, wriggling and tugging at him until xander’s full on top of him, pressing harry into the summer-dry grass, constrained and breathless.

harry gets his hands on both sides of xander’s face and kisses him like someone might have in high school, tongue-first, more spit and enthusiasm than sense. the end of every breath he takes is cut off by xander’s weight. maybe he could filter right through the grass prickling the backs of his arms and down into the dirt, french-pressed peacefully into this field in the anonymity of pennsylvania. no crowds, no photos, no worries. nobody knows where he is right now, nobody except xander.

he hooks an ankle around xander’s calf and tilts his hips up against xander’s constraining weight. xander digs a knee into the turf and bears down right where harry wants him to, feeling harry hard against his thigh.

xander shifts, trying to get a hand on harry’s zipper. if harry wants to play high school, well. the real high school experience is getting blown on the lax field. (xander managed it twice, with two different girls. convinced them both that it was their own daring singular idea, as if it hadn’t happened to every guy on the team.)

but harry snakes his arm under xander’s and presses his hand flat into the small of his back, keeping him in place. there’s a skim of sweat on the side of harry’s nose and the damp slide of his tongue in xander’s mouth is no more humid than the heavy summer night settling around them. xander feels the flex of harry’s muscles under his own as harry moves slowly and insistently against him, until harry’s whole body tenses and his mouth goes slack beneath xander’s and harry comes in his pants like the high school kid he never got to be.


End file.
